Pizzas galore!

The hall erupts with thunderous clapping, cheering and foot stamping. Robertson looks a little taken aback. Over the course of the next hour, the fury and dismay of much of the local community is given voice. “In Scotland in the 21st century,” says an angry Tony Meechan, a 37-year-old water worker with three children, “if anyone wants to send their child to school to learn English in their own community, they should have that right.”

Outside in the cold, Christine Mackinnon, a 33-year-old care worker, confides her fears for the future of Sleat if English-speaking children like her eight-year-old son Matthew are excluded.

“It’s already destroying the community,” she says. “Couples are arguing, children are falling out with their friends. Look at what happens when you have Catholic and Protestant schools, or with racism. This is going down that road.”

She looks pale and upset, but more than anything else she looks angry. “I was born and bred here. I’ve lived here all my life. Our parents fought really hard to get this school built more than 20 years ago. They did that for everyone who lives here, not just for Gaelic speakers.”

This is not the first time the emotive politics of language have divided the community of Sleat. Three years ago the spark was provided by Sir Iain Noble, a prominent local land owner and former merchant banker. A doughty campaigner for Gaelic, he owns the celebrated hotel Eilean Iarmain, where guests are often seen wrestling with the front door because they do not know if “tarruing” means push or pull. At a meeting of the Countryside Alliance, Noble caused uproar by arguing passionately against English immigration into Skye. “Does that mean I must be a racialist? I think I have to confess that I am,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I don’t like foreigners. I love them, all colours. I have many Indian friends and even one or two black ones. But I don’t want them to settle and produce ghettos in my patch of the country.”

Most people on Skye dismissed this as the ranting of a well-known colourful eccentric. But there were others who insisted Noble had a point. With the survival of Gaelic hanging in the balance, how could it thrive when so many people in its traditional heartland were incomers who spoke only English? Where, if anywhere, did you draw the line?

You can tell Sleat Primary is a good school the minute you walk through the door. It bustles with energy. The corridor is a clatter of wee feet and chatter. Paintings cover the walls and cupboards are stacked with musical instruments and books.

The school is already bilingual. Parents can choose to have their children educated wholly in Gaelic or English. Two years ago the English-speakers were outnumbered by the Gaelic speakers for the first time, and currently the Gaelic group has 49 children and the English group 33 pupils. The head teacher politely declined to comment — she has been told by Highland council not to talk publicly about the future of her own school.

A mere 300 yards down the road from Sleat Primary is Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the internationally renowned Gaelic college. It occupies a stunning position on the edge of a cliff, its modern white tower standing proud like a beacon. Just as it dominates the skyline, so it dominates the local area and economy. It is a Gaelic power base as well as a seat of learning. Yet even here, among the 60 staff and 100 full-time students, the division within the community is keenly felt. One employee confided last week: “It’s like Gunsmoke in here.” Perhaps surprisingly, some of the most vocal opponents of the plan for an all-Gaelic school are the Sabhal Mor Ostaig staff. This has dismayed some enthusiastic backers, who are now questioning, privately, their colleagues’ commitment to the Gaeltacht. For some, the issue has become a litmus test to determine whether a Gael is a true believer.

College lecturer Murdo Macleod, one undoubtedly true believer, is sitting in a cluttered office. He is the spokesman for the local branch of Comann nam Parent, the group behind the request to Highland council. An intense and bespectacled 41-year-old from the Isle of Lewis, he has two children at Sleat Primary, a son, Fiann, and a daughter, Raonaid.

“The right to safeguard our language is a fundamental human right,” he says. “A hundred years ago, women’s rights and racial equality were barely a blip, and now they are established in everyone’s consciousness. The same will be true of language rights.”

He patiently explains the educational arguments for “total immersion” in Gaelic, and how the current arrangements fail Gaelic children. The default language for a bilingual school — in the playground, dinner hall and in assembly — will always be English, he says. “One language always rules the other when the two meet in the whole-school environment. That is discrimination.”

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